Man gets 15 years for kidnapping, shooting

Daniel Tepfer

Published 8:28 pm, Friday, March 30, 2012

BRIDGEPORT -- A Stratford man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for kidnapping and shooting a city resident last year.

"This situation is a complete mystery to me," Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin Jr. said as Lonnie Hodges stood before with his head bowed. "A man is kidnapped and taken to another location where he is shot ¦ the gentleman is disabled and in pain and doesn't think the sentence is enough and frankly I don't blame him."

But the judge continued that he would go along with the plea bargain reached when Hodges pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping and first-degree assault and sentenced the 22-year-old Hodges to 30 years, suspended after he serves 15 years and followed by five years probation.

According to Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney C. Robert Satti Jr., in the early morning hours of July 13, 2011, Stratford police were dispatched to North Peters Lane where they located the 27-year-old victim, wearing only a bloody bed sheet and bleeding from a gunshot wound to his leg.

Police said the victim told them he had been kidnapped by Hodges who he knew and often let stay in his Taft Avenue home. That previous evening the victim told police he had gotten a call from Hodges looking for a place to stay so he had let him in and then gone to bed.

However, police said the man continued that about 2 a.m. he awoke to a plastic bag being pulled over his face and a T-shirt being wrapped around his neck. He lost consciousness and when he woke up he was in the trunk of his BMW wrapped only in a sheet.

At some point police said the victim felt the car come to a stop and then Hodges opened the trunk and pointed a handgun at him. The victim said Hodges told him, "You better run or I'll kill you."

The victim said he ran into some woods as Hodges began firing at him, police said. Wounded by one of the shots, police said the victim laid on the ground until he heard the car drive away.